OPEC announced today that it was tightening oil production by 1 million barrels a day.  Some folks have speculated that gasoline prices jumped today because of an explosion at a BP refinery, but I would bet the OPEC announcement carried greater weight.  The BP plant explosion only offered a chance to jack up pricing earlier rather than later.

But the money in oil isn’t just from sales of the stuff; it’s in the handling of the monies surrounding oil.  It’s not as if oil = money literally, but it’s damned close.

So follow the money; is it really that demand will outstrip supply, or that the folks who manipulate the market are working the system, gaming it to push up the yields not only oil but on the cash behind and around it?

Yeah.  I’m betting there’s a war for oil on, too, and it’s not the battle for Iraq.  Or at least it’s not just about Iraq.  It’s about real wealth and who will have more of it.  It’s about amassing enough of it to make unilateral preemption unnecessary because of the preponderance of wealth on hand.

I’ve made comments before about the issue of economic war; specifically, I believe we are in the midst of an asymmetrical, unrestricted war.  The weapons aren’t obvious to the average Joe, but the combatants rely on him.  The oil the average Joe consumes, the microeconomic decisions he makes, the investments he does/doesn’t make are all predicated on conditions set by those prosecuting this war.  Joe is pushed and pulled and manipulated until he caves in and does the bidding of one of the combatants.

The average Joe continues along in oblivion, bitching about the price of oil – but never realizing it’s not about the gasoline he uses, that it’s about the flow of money in quantities so large that he'd only scratch his head in confused wonder were he ever to grasp the concept.  He’ll keep scratching his head until a formerly impoverished country becomes the heir presumptive to the right of unilateral preemption.

But by then it will be entirely too late to clue in.

10:45:53 PM    comment []